Rachel’s daughter Sierra was inspired by our adventure and after talking to her for a couple of days she quit her job and came her to visit us!  She has decided that corporate life is not for her (she works in the pharmecutical industry), and wanted to come and hang out with Quinn and Rachel for a bit so she flew to Spain.  The only problem is that she has never traveled internationally and the only flight she could get was to Malaga…. many hours from our new home in the Alpujarra mountains and… we have no transportation currently.  So, we had to figure out how to get there… Bus?  Car?  Train?

The problem is that we unknowingly had scheduled this event on the Fiesta Nacional de España, literally the biggest celebration of the year in Spain!  There was nowhere to stay, no cars to rent and options were severely limited.  But hey, we asked for an Epic Adventure, right?

We decided that we would take our time and take the few busses available.  So, we left Narila, Spain at 6:40 am on a bus to Grenada.  From there we needed to kill a night and then take another bus to Malaga to pick her up and then figure out how to get home the same way.  This involved several nights of lodging needed and literally all of the AirBnb rentals were full!

So, we adapted and decided to pack a backpack and stay in Hostels.  It was an amazing journey and the first night we stayed in El Granado Hostel in Granada, Spain and it was so amazing we decided to take Sierra there for a night on the way back!

When we finally arrived back in Narila, dragging and tired it was dark-thirty of the fourth day….  we got off the bus and couldn’t believe what we heard….  it sounded like the biggest party in the world!  We started walking into the village and were met by the whole village celebrating!  It was the last fday of the festival and thousands of people were in the streets, dancing, singing, eating and drinking and having a wonderful time!

The best part though for me was the young people!  Their marching band was spontaneously performing in the streets with drums, trombones, trumpets, a young woman leading it all with an electronic megaphone and everyone yelling and dancing with glee!  It was an epic celebration!

We made our way down into the village square and the fountain in the center was running with wine!  Food was being cooked everywhere, there were games and rides for the kids and smiles on all of the faces.  The prolific ex-pat community was there as well and we saw lots of the new friends we had made and throughout the night we met many more!  It was an epic end to a month long stay in this quiet village and an exciting introduction for Sierra to Andulusian mountain life!